


She

by ModernAgeSomniari



Series: Mala Suledin Nadas [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life, Very early days - Freeform, they kind of hate each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25359493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernAgeSomniari/pseuds/ModernAgeSomniari
Summary: Eli has woken up to a broken world.  Her friends are dead, the shemlen want to kill her and the first elf she sees spent approximately five minutes helping her fight demons before informing her that he hates the Dalish.  The one bright spot in all of this?  She got to meet an actual real-life dwarf.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Mala Suledin Nadas [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829143
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	She

“‘She’ is right here!”

He clearly wasn’t prepared for her to round on him. The anchor fizzed up her arm and she let it and the fear it brought with it churn into anger. “‘She’ would very much appreciate you at least speaking to her like she’s here, although it’s clear you have such disdain for her and her people that you couldn’t even keep your disdain to yourself until after the sky has stopped shitting out demons every two minutes!”

She took pleasure in his dark grey eyes widening at her hissing accusation, even if it was only for a moment, and didn’t wait for him to reply. She didn’t want him to, anyway. Shaking out her left hand, she turned back to the path and picked her way up the ruined stairs treacherous with ice. Her feet were heavy in these stupid boots and she stomped through the snow at the top not bothering to check if they were following. Of course they were bloody following - she was apparently the only way they were going to stop the demon vomiting hole in the Wolf-cursed sky that also wanted to crawl inside her palm.

Around the corner, the trail turned down a narrow pass that whistled with bitter wind. She shook her head, pulling the thin scarf around her mouth down so she could feel that air on her neck. It raised goosebumps on her skin, but she used it to breathe, slowly. Forget that her heart had soared when she’d seen him, the first elf she’d noticed since she’d woken up. Forget, too, how that heart had lifted even higher when it turned out he was a mage, not from the Circle or the Dalish, just taught on his own. How excited she’d been, how curious as to his origins, his craft. Forget it, because then the disappointment would be too much in the face of all this. Feeling stupid because her heart had seen an ally when her head had not seen any evidence that he’d be so. Realizing that he wasn’t made her feel more alone than she ever remembered being. So forget it. Forget it all.

“It’s not far to the forward camp, just beyond this ridge.”

She managed not to jump as Cassandra came up behind her, but only just.

“Good. Then how far to the Breach?”

“That depends which way we go - Leliana will have assessed the situation.”

They trudged in silence, Eli noticing Cassandra’s eyes ever scanning the horizon.

“You don’t feel like a templar.”

“That is because I am not one.”

“They called you ‘Seeker’.”

“They did.”

Eli fell silent, but Cassandra didn’t seem to want to elaborate so she went back to scouring every rocky shadow for movement. “Oh, I suppose you have not heard the term?”

It wasn’t asked unkindly and Cassandra’s face was neutral, if curious beside her. Eli shook her head and a wry smile crossed the woman’s scarred face. “It is not surprising. There are many who have not heard the term, although some have heard it only in fatuous tales, which is probably worse.”

Again surprisingly, Eli found some comfort in knowing that even some shemlen didn’t know this name. She was tired of feeling stupid. “Perhaps, once this is over I shall tell you.”

“On the way to the trial, you mean?”

Cassandra’s expression darkened, but Eli could tell she was glad the tone hadn’t been accusatory.

“Indeed.”

They fell silent again, at least until they heard the shouts from the outcrop that held the gates to the forward camp. Eli broke out into a run first, letting Cassandra charge ahead. She positioned herself naturally between Solas and Varric, feeling a small surge of pride at Varric’s cheer as he somewhat gleefully sent a terrifyingly forceful arrow directly into the shade she had just frozen, spreading bits of frozen demon over the snow to smoke gently in black ichor. She could lose herself in this, just for a moment, pretend that these weren’t strangers, that the sky wasn’t open. That Yerevan and Ghila weren’t dead.

The anchor, this close to a rift, was a constant buzz in her left hand and most of her concentration went into compensating for it. When the rift imploded only to reassemble, quivering in eerie green light, she was more than ready. At least this time she was pretty sure she didn’t make too many involuntary sounds as the feeling scratched and jarred through her palm to her elbow. At least until it released, the force of it staggering her a little and pushing a cry from her lips. It wasn’t painful, precisely, more that she was pretty sure she was making noises that would make her brother snigger. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to do that in front of so many shiny shemlen.

Varric made an appreciative sound as he came over, picking up bolts and cleaning them in the snow.

“That thing on your hand is useful.”

“Apparently, yes.”

“You ready for this, Twinkles?”

She turned, unsure. Apparently her confusion showed on her face, because he laughed. “Yeah, I don’t like it much either. I’m trying out some options, though, just give me time.”

“Hence, ‘Chuckles’?”

“Exactly.”

“What about Cassandra?”  
“She scares the crap out of me - I think just ‘Seeker’ is fine.”

Eli found herself smiling despite the situation. It wasn’t just that she’d finally managed to meet a dwarf after wanting to for so long (and that he appeared to be quite wonderful), it was more that he made her feel part of this strange little group. Whatever was about to happen to her, he’d all but admitted he wasn’t going to leave her to do it alone. No matter his intentions, she appreciated that.

The doors opened and she instinctively walked a little closer to him as they entered the bridge, still very unused to such scrutiny. She had a strange urge to hide her hand. As she walked, she scanned the area - mostly barrels and supplies, but the odd table piled high with papers and various bits of weaponry. She heard raised voices ahead of her and saw the shemlen she remembered was called Leliana (her armour was very different to all of the others) and a strange shemlen man dressed in white, with a funny sort of headdress she remembered from the Conclave.

Also like those in the Conclave, he was an arse.

Once she had recovered from his first order, her hand reaching behind her automatically as he demanded she be chained, she found herself sneering. Not to say she didn’t still fear him and his power, or even Cassandra and Leliana with their practicality, but the ice in her gut dispersed into a desperate sort of readiness. At one point she realized, with a pang, that Solas and Varric were standing at her shoulders behind her. A few days ago that had been Yerevan and Ghila, facing the shems together. Creators but she couldn’t afford to miss them now. If Solas had anything to say about the quick shake of her head to rid herself of the emotions, he kept his words to himself. She may have seriously considered throwing him off this damn bridge, otherwise.

She almost didn’t notice that Cassandra had turned to ask her a question.

“Oh, so now you want my opinion?”

Her irritation that she’d sounded so petulant was not helped by Solas’ reminder that she held the Mark. She did not like the idea of abandoning people to the mountain, not even in the face of all this. Cassandra’s small frown at the decision was eclipsed by Varric’s approving hum. She thought, as she stalked away from the blustering idiot in the silly hat, that she heard him murmur something about ‘not leaving men behind’ but most of it was covered by a howl of wind that blew straight into their faces from the path that she had just decided they were about to climb. 

Once the incline really got going, there wasn’t much breath left for talking. When she wasn’t picking her way around the boulders littering the path, she took what time she could to look at what precisely had blossomed onto her left palm. She couldn’t penetrate it with her magic, but noticed that she could almost hear it hum if she found a place quiet enough. Cassandra huffed from behind her every now and again but couldn’t argue with needing to know how your own hand worked. She caught Solas watching her quietly every now and again, but more in a wary animal sort of way rather than anything more judgemental. She let him. She didn’t have the time or heart to care.

When they were taking a small breather on an outcrop, she finally looked back.

“Can I help you?”

If he was insulted, it didn’t phase him.

“May I ask what you’re listening for?”

Through her irritation she remembered, begrudgingly, that he had saved her life.

“Not for anything exactly. Just noticing that it hums. In response to the Breach itself, I think.”

He was nodding in agreement.

“That would indeed make sense. Some sort of…”

“…sensory feedback loop between the two? Yes, that was my thought. Did you hear it when you were looking at it?”

He spared a glance for her before looking back at her hand, clearly as engrossed by it as she was and either oblivious to her thinly veiled hostility or simply uncaring. It was slightly disappointing.

“No, it did not do so for me. But perhaps that is also unsurprising - it is bonded to you, after all. I could feel the distortion in the Veil around it, but not as anything audible.”

She was about to ask him something else (she hadn’t thought much about the harmonics of distortion yet and was surprised he knew the concept, despite Cassandra’s assurance he was an expert in the Fade), but Cassandra started making sounds to move. As the Breach pulsed and she felt the pins and needles through to her toes, something in the hum sounded for a brief moment more like a drawn out scream. Or many screams in one. They were close enough now that the jagged silhouette of the ruined Temple reared above them. The bodies of Ghila and Yerevan were somewhere in that Temple. Let it scream.

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first slice-of-life for Eli I wrote this time round, inspired by the journey up to the Breach. Just after you get Solas and Varric, your hand pulses and Solas (who if you’re a Lavellan has just shat on your entire culture within 5 minutes of meeting you) says to Cassandra:
> 
> “Hurry, she hasn’t got much time!”
> 
> Eli was not particularly amused…


End file.
